Giving a hoot about Canadian music

Audible/Visual Hoots: Namoo Nara, Elisapie, Isla Craig & more

Namoo Nara – “Noonchi”

“Noonchi” is from Namoo Nara’s dreamy Imaginary Places EP and the video treatment not only adds some trippy visuals, but it also extends the song and adds in vocals from Leah Mertz. The video might be called mildly NSFW and follows some blue people as they fly through a colourful world.

Isla Craig – “Love Song”

Isla Craig is one of the first names that comes up when you talk about creative, boundary-pushing people so it’s excellent to hear that she has a new album, The Becoming, out June 22 on Pleasence Records. “Love Song” flows across five minutes over broken-up, R&Bish beats and Craig’s wonderfully expressive vocals, with the perfect amount of saxophone rising up when needed. If the entire album is this hypnotic, we’re going to have a must-have album on our hands.

Elisapie – “Don’t Make Me Blue”

Though it’s a love song, “Don’t Make Me Blue” is several thousand times more intense than your standard fare. The song slowly builds up a layer of ominous chords and scattered vocals, eventually becoming so frantic that you wonder where it all came from. It’s enchanting and terrifying, and basically, that can also describe love, can’t it?

Hand’Solo Records – Choose Your Own Avenger

In probably the best non-official thing that coincides with the release of Avengers: Infinity War, the excellent Hand’Solo records put together two posse cuts paying tribute to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. One, the Mighty Version, has More or Les featuring int eighty, Wordburglar, NiLLa, Touch and MikeAll, paying tribute to, among others, Black Panther, Wolverine, Moon Knight, and Starfox (!!!). The Ultimate Version (Ultra Magnus ft. Lex Lingo, Schaffer the Darklord, Shubzilla, Sulfur and Primordial Emcee) has raps about Ant-Man, She-Hulk and Nova, among others. It’s hard to pick a winner of these two mind-blowing songs, so props to Shubzilla’s spitfire verse about She-Hulk and Wordburglar’s silky-smooth ode to the perviest of all Avengers.

Birch Barks – “Tell Me”

You can’t not be intrigued by the bio “Birch Barks generated from lumps of mold in an old nuclear shelter to bring you the first rompy tomp experience.” What does that mean? Who the hell knows. What I do know is this is dream pop to get lost in. There’s so many moving parts to “Tell Me” – metaphorically, imagine a thread that’s so hopelessly tangled that you won’t remember what it looked like originally. Finger-snap beats anchor the song in reality, some morose guitar glides in and out, and the lines “Do a little dance” will stick in your head forever.

Stalone – “Orangina”

I can’t help but be hit by good nostalgia listening to the debut single from Stalone—Jordon Zadorozny (Blinker the Star) and George Poirot Dimopoulos. Big, brash guitars meet 80s synths, the vocals are expressive and proud; it’s a nice little concoction to pump up your day just a little more.